I want to paint the scream more than the horror*

by Aeon Ginsberg

and maybe that’s it, on the screen; the burn
across the person-figures crotch set ablaze;
and maybe that is the trial and the witch and
does that not make me fear?because I am afraid
of so much my body quakes itself against
an ending it does not want; find me a stove
and I will know myself something flammable;
so bring me to this box not unlike
a coffin or shoreline (something where
the inside is what you expect of it)
and know my shape with how it stops itself;
there is nothing a body scan of me will tell you
that you cannot also find dead somewhere;

and maybe that means if my bones are pyre
the hormones make me that much hotter,
and there is the joke about puberty here;
and there is the observation of queerness
and flaming; watch as I burn.

But even when the machine calls me
a girl you will deny it a way to char
and it’s not like I am a witch on trial
I just know what it means to have men
try and translate you into something edible;
I know if you scan my body you will find
the parts of myself I fear the most too.

and yes, I fear flight like I fear vulnerability;
and yes, there is not enough oxygen to sear my gender in the sky;
and yes there is magic but it is not in an airport;
and yes; and yes; and yes, I can be covered and still be found;and no, I do not want to dieand yet, here I am.

* Francis Bacon, The Brutality of Fact (David Sylvester)

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Aeon Ginsberg (they/them) is a trans feminine writer and performer from Baltimore City, MD. They are the author of chapbooks Until The Cows Come Home (Elation Press, 2016) and Loathe/Love/Lathe (Nostrovia! Press, 2017). Aeon is a Taurus, a barista, a bartender, and a bitch.